The Border Wait, and Wait, and Wait

Baja  When it comes to crossing the border, Carlos Hermosillo plays it by ear. As he gets close to the San Ysidro crossing, he calls 700-7000 on his cell phone, and a recording gives him the approximate wait time. On Thursday, July 3, at 1:00 p.m., the recording said there were 300 cars lined up at the port of entry; the wait was over two hours. Hermosillo went to plan B. He parked his car in Tijuana at a $5 all-day parking lot and walked across to the trolley.

“It still took me one-half hour to get across,” says Hermosillo in slightly accented English.

Cal State Fullerton student Genaro Rincón crosses into the United States at least once a week. Before he leaves his house in Tijuana, he tunes in to Radio Latina 104.5 to hear updates on the wait at the pedestrian checkpoint. Occasionally, even with the heads-up, he’s had to wait for more than an hour.

For Hermosillo and Rincón, long waits are just part of crossing into the United States, but for others, they have become so much of a hassle that the hemisphere’s busiest border crossing is not as busy as it once was. More than 64.9 million people crossed the border at San Ysidro during fiscal year 2003. In just four years, says U.S. Customs and Border Protection, that number has dropped by nearly 10.8 million.

Since 9/11, the wait has become so bad for Hector Lam that he’s cut back on trips into the United States. He used to come three times a week to see family and run errands. “I cross in my car,” he says. “It used to be that after the morning chaos, between 9:00 and noon, an average wait of 15 minutes to cross was normal, and I would cross sometimes even more. Now I cross only once a week, to see my kids and do all the things that I used to do in several trips.” Lam says that on good days, with few cars in line, it still takes him nearly an hour to cross.

According to Mark Baza at Caltrans, border delays for people and freight shipments cost San Diego County and Baja California an estimated $4.2 billion and over 42,000 jobs in 2007.

Erik Salazar, a resident of Playas de Tijuana, used to work in National City. But he had to leave his house three hours before he was expected to clock in. That gave him just enough time to drive to the border, park his car, get through Customs, and ride the trolley to work. Most days it would take him over 40 minutes to get through the pedestrian checkpoint. The long waits and early mornings prompted a career change for Salazar. Now he works in Mexico.

Even people who have SENTRI cards, designed to speed up crossings, are experiencing lengthy delays. Over 100,000 cards have been issued in the United States since 1995, says Vince Bond, public relations officer for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Harlan Pebley went through the background check and private interview with Customs officers and paid the $122 to get a SENTRI pass. He drives from San Diego to his second home in Campo López, near the K-55 marker in Baja California, three times a month. Pebley’s been making the trek for the past 40 years and has seen a lot of changes. “You know, 15 to 20 years ago, you could get through in about 5 to 10 minutes. The entire trip would take me a little over 20 minutes, but all that changed since they started with the heightened security. It used to be that the border guys wouldn’t even get off of their stool. They would just ask what you bought in Mexico and wave you through. Now, even with the SENTRI pass, it takes anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes just at the border. The other lanes are usually backed up to the bridge.”

Some other alternatives do exist for border crossers. For $5 they can take a bus, operated by Mexicoach, from downtown Tijuana to the port of entry at San Ysidro. The bus drops off passengers at Customs, allowing them to bypass the pedestrian line. But Jorge Gonzáles, administrative director for Mexicoach, says that while it usually takes 25 to 30 minutes for buses to get to the border, sometimes it takes two hours. “We’re supposed to have a lane just for the buses, but it doesn’t work that way,” he says. “There’s a lot of traffic that gets in the way and holds everything up, and there’s nothing we can do.”

Unfortunately, there are few signs of immediate improvement. Congressman Bob Filner, of the 51st Congressional District, feels the federal government hasn’t wanted to improve. “Since 9/11, the executive department doesn’t want an efficient border,” he says. “They have decided that long lines and arbitrary waits of one, two, three hours is good security. I think that’s ridiculous; an efficient border is a more secure border.”

Filner believes that some of the issues can be addressed with more manpower and updated technology. “Almost 99 percent of the people that cross the border cross regularly. Giving those people background checks and smart cards and concentrating on the 1 percent we don’t know would make more sense, but they don’t want that. They don’t want an efficient border. They could do it easily by supplying more funding for staffing to open up all of the gates around the clock or by investing in new technology, like retinal scans.”

Vincent Bond of Customs says there are mandates in place for specific security checks that Customs officers need to perform. “We are very, very aware of the economic impact and the feelings of the community,” he says, “but there is an ever-present threat from narcotics smugglers and the ever-present threat of smuggling people in trunks and under blankets — it happens all of the time. There is a tightrope that our officers walk, having to facilitate the entry of traffic but at the same time denying entrance to dangerous people and dangerous things.”

Comments

If you cross a lot, I have found, you can figure out when the busy times are, which are in the morning when people are going to work or school in the U.S., and mid-afternoon when the morning tourists are coming back. Ditto Sunday and Monday morning. I have been in the two hour lines, and I have crossed with no lines in five minutes. The buses are worth $5 so you don't have to stand on your feet and in the sun or rain. Some of the shuttles for $10 will take you to the Otay border, where the line is usually less long, and then the shuttle will pick you up and take you back to San Ysidro -- unless the shuttle driver decides he doesn't feel like it, then you're out of luck and have to spend $15 on a cab.

There are guys you can pay $10 who will slip you to the front of the line, or you can find someone who will take 5-10 to let you cut in front of them -- if the TJ or US uniforms see this, though, they may send you back to the back.

There are also a good amount of bullies who just push their way to the front.

Summers seem to be the worst, la linea is always long by foot or car. People are hot and irritated and there's the occasional fist fight among the overheated and overly macho.

The good citizens of TJ, of course, like it when the lines are long, because there is money to be made -- sodas and churros and water are sold, buses and shuttles are packed, the duty free stores along the walkway do more business.

The problem is not too few lanes or too few border crossings. If I get there at three am and 4 out of 22 lanes are open with a 1 hour wait, the problem is too few inspectors. Typically this is the case. At 4 am, 2 more lanes open, still a 1 hour wait. People who don't want the wear and tear and fuel cost from the 1 hour of stop-and-go will park their car in front of a closed lane and sleep for 1 hour until 5 am when Customs goes to 19 of 22 lanes open. Waits during rush hour are always greater than 1 hour. On weekends, multiply all the wait times by 2.

It's hard to imagine Oprah or Rush Limbaugh coming back home in their private jets from a weekend in the Bahamas to a 2-4 hour Customs line.....or any first class passengers, who are always first off the plane. I fly coach and my US Customs wait is typically less than 15 minutes. Customs knows that if they made our pampered elite wait in line for 4 hours, they'd be hearing about it, fast. But a bunch of ATV riders, partiers, shoppers and Mexican workers are not going to squawk about it.

But they should. Because there is no way this policy of under-manning the border is going to change without enough people raising hell about it. The Govinator is building his toll road to a undermanned Customs station in Timbuktoo. The GAO is paving over parking to build search lanes that won't be used. Not until they budget for more inspectors.

I understand that many people approach the San Ysidro crossing on the far right crossing area. I think there is access from a street that originates near the Plaza Rio shopping center. Most of the traffic originates from the Avenida Revolucion area and creates a huge bottleneck.
Perhaps the reason for making the crossing not too efficient is protective. If a person has bad intentions, maybe the agents at the border would rather have him/her sit at the border for an hour or two and get real anxious about crossing so that they can spot them easier.